But what I've learned about Burkina so far is that nothing happens at a pace anything like what I'm used to in Canada. Walking around is a chore in itself, because the downtown core (particularly around the Grande Mosquée located across the street from the hotel) is crammed with vendors selling everything from kleenex and phone cards to perfume and secondhand electronics. There are no sidewalks to speak of on most of the streets, so the challenge is to politely decline dozens of sales pitches ("Nasaara (white person)! Nasaara!") while dodging a few battered green taxis and about three times as many mopeds (motos).
Nitha, Megan and I made the mistake of going out without a planned route one day, meaning that we had to pause on a street corner to read a street sign and ask for directions, giving the vendors and hungry children a chance to surround us. In the meantime, the American Express system was down at each bank we went to, so we had to go from bank to bank trying to find a place that had it working (before they closed for lunch at noon, to reopen at three when the heat had subsided), only to leave the bank to find at least some of the vendors still waiting for us. I felt weird saying no to them, since it must have seemed that we were rolling in hard cash, having visited bank after bank. We finally ducked into a cafe to escape them and have lunch.
It was a similar story to find this internet cafe that afternoon--there are télécentres everywhere, because almost no one has a phone in their home, but internet sites, as you might imagine, are scarcer. We had to ask three people for directions before we could find one, perhaps because the clientele in the internet cafe (once we finally found it) leads me to believe that these facilities are almost never used by local residents.
After taking two days to run those "simple" errands and get organized, Megan, Nitha and I are starting to settle into our placement at the Association Nationale de l'Education et de la Réinsertion Sociale des Enfants à Risques (ANERSER), an organization providing housing, social support, literacy lessons and vocational training to children who have recently been living on the street in downtown Ouagadougou. There are about 30 youth--all boys, as are 98 per cent of the street children in Burkina--ranging in age from about eight years old to 21. Most are not orphans, so the organization aims to return them to their families whenever possible, while providing a structured environment and some education.
"Structured" so far seems to be a pretty relative term, since the younger boys do literacy and health training for a couple of hours each morning, before it gets too hot, but don't have a lot to do otherwise. The organization runs on a very tight budget and its dedicated staff (encadreurs) tell us there's always more they wish they could do. There is a dusty courtyard to play in, and they have a few toys: about 20 marbles, half a deck of torn and dusty cards, an old frisbee apparently brought by a previous Canadian volunteer (judging from the red maple leaf in the centre), a soccer ball, a television with a couple of channels, and probably a couple of other things I haven't seen yet. Most have one or two sets of shabby clothes, and a couple of the more recent arrivals don't have shoes. Nonetheless, they are polite, energetic and eager to play with us or get us to read or drill the alphabet with them. Most speak at least some French but chat in Mooré amongst themselves. They've been teaching us how to greet people and how to count.
Megan, Nitha and I are living with the family of one of ANERSER's encadreurs, in a courtyard-style house a five-minute walk from ANERSER. The family is large: one set of grandparents, two daughters aged 23 and 25, one son aged about 20 , three cousins also in their 20s, two grandchildren aged four and seven, and innumerable other cousins and neighbours always dropping by. I'm finding that aspect a bit stressful, since I'm accustomed to a smaller family and much more of my own time, but I hope to adapt.
From what I can tell, they are a fairly comfortable working-class family: the daughters and one cousin are all hairdressers, and the grandfather works for a shipping company in some capacity. The house has electricity but no running water, so the daughters go to a nearby communal faucet each morning with a tank on wheels and bring it back for cooking, drinking and bathing. Our thrice-daily showers (almost necessary to life and health given the sweat, dust and heat) consist of filling a 15-litre bucket and pouring it over oneself in a stall with a drain. The toilet is a hole in the concrete floor of the outhouse. We're still getting the hang of keeping ourselves clean in the dust and heat, but the always well-dressed Burkinabé women are proof that it can be done.
Still, the schedule is draining. We get up between 5 and 6 am, like everyone else, arrive at ANERSER at 8 to help with reading etc., play with the kids and hang out with the staff until noon, go home for lunch between 12 and 3, then are back hanging out at the centre between 3 and 7 or 8. Things are a little slow (and, frankly, a little frustrating) right now, but hopefully once we organize our particular project, there will be more of the structures and specific tasks I like to have to keep me busy.
In the meantime, I'm glad of a weekend. Burkinabé don't seem to need much sleep: the sisters in our family (25, 25, and 23) come dancing or to the movies with us at night and go to bed at 1 when we do, but are still up and cheerful at 5 am. They were incredulous when I told them I like to sleep 8 hours each night. They were good about letting us sleep until 9:30 this morning after having taken us out to dance last night (good fun... I'm sure I will have more to say on clubbing in Ouaga another time).
That's all for now, until next weekend, when I should be able to come downtown again to email and blog. Things are about as well as they can be, given my extreme culture shock and (for the first time in my life) homesickness: I live in a safe neighbourhood with a generous family and work with excellent people, and I'm eating well and haven't been sick. I came here to be thrown for a loop, and so far I have been. It wasn't meant to be all fun. But I'm already glad I came.
posted by Emily @ 1:23 p.m.
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